March 13 will bring the beginning of Daylight Saving Time in California and most of the other American states this year and tons of Americans will wake up the next morning needing an extra shot of caffeine to get by the day. At 2am that morning, the clocks will magically jump to 3am.
Benjamin Franklin was a proponent of DST to save on lamp oil and candles. It was also meant to preserve every hour of daylight possible for people such as farmers to work their land.
In present day, Daylight Saving Time was originally thought to help when it comes to preserving electricity and cutting costs on American's utility bills. In a study about Indiana's energy use, it was found that since they adopted Daylight Saving Time in 2006, energy use actually went up. Pollution from car emissions went up as well as it was found that more people hit the roads while it was still light out. From a health standpoint, the loss of an hour of sleep creates an increase of heart attacks, car accidents, and injuries at work because of drowsiness during the week that follows the time change.
Assemblyman Kansen Chu, D-San Jose has introduced a bill that would get rid of the Daylight Saving Time Act of 1949 in the state of California. If passed, when the clock falls back in November, it will never spring forward again. States such as Hawaii and Arizona already do not observe Daylight Saving Time, so a precedent has already been set in the United States.
DST is outdated and should be overturned. While people would lose the benefit of gaining an extra hour of free time or sleep in the fall, they don't have to worry about losing an hour of sleep in the spring. It would be most beneficial for the United States to have a permanent standard time instead.
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